Castles Crumble Slowly
by Supey
Summary: Au oneshot HOLIDAY IS THE BEST THING EVER YOU WISH SHE WERE YOUR MOM happy secret santa to glitterdustdoll on lj, who is basically married to holiday btw holiday is the ultimate hbic ever


"_Forgive us,_" a man's voice rasped through the speaker, lips cracked and bloody, camera too close for anything but stubble and yellow-tinted teeth. "_Forgive us, for we know not what we did._" It was only a whisper, spoken directly into the machine, and if it weren't for that proximity the words would have been entirely lost in the noise behind him; roaring flames, shouts, the ringing and familiar scrape of metal crumpled into nothing.

"_Do you hear what I say? Do you know what I speak of? Forgive us,_" he repeated, desperation setting in. "_Forget-_"

The screen went grainy, then black.

Sqwydd was the first one to speak, features obscured by his thick tentacles. "That's from the Bible, isn't it? That mean something special?"

"Those are the final words of a delirious man," White said grimly. "Nothing more, nothing less."

Holiday looked up from the PDA. "The date for that entry is almost a year before the original event. I think there's more to this story than we thought."

"We won't know anything until we get to Rex," Tuck said. "The lab was just another dead end."

"I agree," Dr. Holiday said. "But, as much as I hate to admit it, we don't have the firepower to take on Van Kleiss right now."

"As I said before, the Providence vault holds some heavy artillery," White Knight said. "If it hasn't been broken into, I am still the only man with a key."

"Let's try that, then," Tuck nodded at him. "Not much else in the way of options. Plus, even if Rex is too much to handle, we might be able to find Agent Six or Noah."

They all looked to Holiday at this, trying to be inconspicuous about it, but her face remained carefully blank. "The vault. That's reasonable. How heavily _could_ Base be guarded at this point?" White Knight nodded his approval.

Base was heavily guarded.

Somehow, even knowing that this was where it had all started, that although Van Kleiss preferred his throne in Abyssus he would surely leave his presence here, neither Holiday nor Knight had stopped to consider just how much of the EVO's firepower stemmed from that first battle at Providence's heart.

"Shit," Tuck said, eyeing the big EVOs at each entrance, the distorted creatures loping about the grounds. Holiday caught flashes of gold upon limbs and chests and pelts as EVOs roamed. They might never know how many of their agents had been turned. "How are we going to sneak in through all that?" The base was mostly intact, save that the dome used to house the Petting Zoo had been cracked open, EVO plant life spilling over the borders. Although the doors of the space had been unlocked, in a sense, Holiday recognized more than one of the Zoo's usual EVOs prowling about, content to remain in a familiar setting.

"I could probably get to the door," Cricket said. She looked at Holiday. "I can run fast enough to open one. If you think we can fight our way in after that."

"Brute force isn't the way to go," Holiday said. "Let me think."

This only got harder. Every time they made progress, or came up with a new idea, the sheer numbers of Van Kleiss' minions forced them back into hiding. It was becoming a painful guerilla war, five against countless creatures, and Holiday worried every day that she would reach the end of her bandolier, that White's suit would wear away, that they would awake to shackles and shattered cities. Or not wake up at all. Constantly looking over their shoulder for a hulking, robotic weapon of destruction, warped so totally from the boy she'd known that it was almost-

Wait. That was it.

"Cricket." Holiday's voice had gone hard. "Do you remember the time Rex gave you all a tour of the Base?"

Cricket nodded fervently.

"Do you remember how to get to the center?"

The girl frowned. "I think so."

"There's a locked building. Reinforced. He must have brought you there."

"Oh," Cricket said, recognition dawning on her features. "Yes. Yeah. I remember it."

Sqwydd watched her now. From that look, Holiday suspected that Rex had told them what lay behind those layers of steel.

"We have to set her loose," Holiday said. "It's worked before." No one said a word. She almost wished they would, that someone would point out the perversion of this, of using her family as a weapon, however mangled that family might be. "At the very least, it will provide a distraction. And if we're lucky, she'll take out a few on the way."

Sqwydd nodded.

"She can use this key," White said, slipping a card from the chest pocket of his suit and handing it over. "That will work on any door," he said.

"So if you get in trouble, run anywhere you can," Tuck clarified. Cricket nodded, growing pale.

"We'll be right behind you," Holiday reassured the young EVO, laying a hand on her shoulder.

All hell broke loose as Cricket sped into the Zoo. Roars and snarls, wet and vicious sounds filled the air. Heads turned, plants trailed after her legs minutes after they'd passed. Holiday braced herself for shrill alarm bells and blinking red lights, but none went off.

"It seems security systems are for humans," White said, apparently having had the same thought.

"Are you alright?" Tuck said into his earpiece. "Cricket?"

Nothing for a moment, then a crackle of static came over the line. "I'm fine. I'm almost at the building – here it…"

Her voice trailed off and Holiday switched on her own mike. "What is it? Is the key card working?"

No response.

"Cricket?"

"Yeah," she said. "No, the card works. It doesn't _not_ work, at least. But the door's already open."

Holiday closed her eyes. Failure. Again. Cricket didn't have much time. "Get out of there. Before they reach you."

The girl didn't seem to have heard her. "The good news is, your sister is here."

They shot back open. "What?"

"She's in the trees above the building. I think there are cocoons inside. I don't know if she sees me yet, but she hasn't attacked."

Holiday's jaw set. White and Sqwydd watched her, but Tuck grabbed for her arm. "You don't have to do this," he hissed. "Not to either of them."

She gently lifted it from his grasp. "We're fighting a war, Tuck." Holiday clicked the mike back on.

"Cricket?"

"Yes?"

"You need to provoke her into attacking the guards coming for you. And then get out of there."

Cricket barely paused before responding, "Roger that." Then the line went dead.

Holiday didn't look at the others. She hefted her gun, cocking it with a snap. "Let's move out," she said. "No one's guarding the wall now."

Everyone complied without a word, even White. As they fanned out together, Holiday wondered when she'd become commander.

She wasn't so sure she wanted it.

The smoke filled her, drew every last breath, greedy, nasty as only nature's venom can be. Dr. Holiday's coughs became thicker with each lungful she wrestled out, her steps faltering. Cricket was gone. Maybe done for. She'd gotten them in, though, that was the important thing. Holiday didn't know where the young EVO's friends had gone – Tuck and Sqwydd's comm links had gone dead a while ago, or maybe they had just stopped listening to her. White, however, was in. They'd fought off as many as they could.

Somehow Cricket had done it, gotten Holiday's sister riled up, and the doctor tried not to think her name from _before_ as the monster tore through deformed foes. They were in, that was for sure. The place hadn't been kept up. What use did EVOs have for Providence's technology that they hadn't already stolen? They'd split up, the halls familiar as home to Holiday and White. White Knight was on his way to the lockdown chambers, to see if he could get ahold of a tank, some weapons, anything. Holiday was passing rows of screens and sliding doors she recognized, as if from a past life, hazy like her oxygen-deprived head. Her job was the same as Sqwydd and Tuck's. The same as Cricket's had been. Cause a disturbance in her area until White could get the goods and they could all try to regroup.

Whatever had sent her down these halls, though, she couldn't put a name to; whether an instinctive urge to revisit the place she'd always come back to or some small hope that, somehow, they'd find something here to take Rex back. She made the turns, even as she coughed out the smoke that cleared with each step. Left, right, right, left again. There was the hangar they'd take turns watching, when Bobo and Rex used to sneak out for food. There was the training hall, where she shot at blinking target after target until she stopped feeling like _the girl_. Another right and his room would be-  
Nothing. The hand that had been propping her up against the hallway met solid iron, reddish-grey. A wall stretched from floor to ceiling, and, if she had to guess, beyond. Like a baseball card slipped under a cup.

Somehow, their entire living space had been sectioned off.

Holiday had turned around, weapon at the ready, looking for something to shoot and get this diversion started. She pushed the thoughts of _seeing it all again_ from her head.

There. Above her head. The strip of lights that lined the hall. She lifted the gun, took aim, and fired.

_CRASH!_

The little room shook around him. White Knight checked the readout on his arm, but nothing flashed. It must have been one of the others laying their trail.

_Beep. Beep. Ping._ The elevator doors slid open. _Basement Level 14_ flashed on the display. How they were still working – how any of the Base was still powered – well, they'd count their blessings later. White had hardly thirty meters to go down yet another hallway before the safe door rose up in his visor. There were some dents and nicks in the metal and in the digital lock's touchscreen interface, but otherwise it appeared untouched. He'd never name himself a praying man, but if Knight's eyes traveled skyward for a moment as his arm lifted to palm the pad, armor retracting to a soft silicone-and-latex glove, if his lips moved in just the ghost of gratitude, who could blame him?

Holiday worked her way back, systematically destroying lights. The EVOs were bound to take notice soon enough, though she'd only had to take care of one small badger-type mutation in this hall. She trained her gun on the computer systems that had distilled the very information filling a drive in the pocket of her lab kit. If she'd told herself a month and a half ago that she'd be willfully demolishing their progress… but then, times changed. People changed.

The earpiece sparked to life just as she was putting a round in a viewscreen.

"Doctor," White Knight's familiar businesslike tone rang in her ear.

"Knight," Holiday said, touching the device. Her gun hand dropped to her side. "What was the locker's status?"

"Green," he responded. "I've acquired an armored vehicle and a significant cache of arms."

"Fantastic," she said.

"I'm going to make my way to the western gate," he said. "It looks the least protected. I need you to call the others and make your way."

The west gate? "Sir," Holiday said, finding the word fit more neatly on her tongue than she remembered. "I'm on the west side right now. The wing has been sectioned off."

"Sectioned off?"

"The entire thing is locked down. Rooms, mess, even Rex's examination room. There's a huge steel wall. I don't know if it's accessible from the other side."

"I'll knock it down. Better to face a wall than fight our way out through the Petting Zoo."

Holiday holstered the weapon. "Calling the other three now, sir."

"Good work, Doctor."

"Knight, wait!" Tuck's arms whipped out to wrap around the antenna of the spider-tank. "I think there's something moving in there!"

White continued to drill through, ignoring the EVO until he let go, mask-like face furious. Holiday saw deep slices along the crushed underside of the metal as it curled, crisscrossing each other. Some were just an inch or two from cutting all the way through. Probably why it was so easy to get through, Holiday realized. It had already been weakened from the other end.

"There were EVOs trapped inside," Sqwydd said quietly, so that she almost thought it was in her head. Holiday looked to him. He raised an arm and traced the line of gouges in the air. "They tried to scratch their way out."

"They've probably been trying to scratch out this whole time - I'm telling you, I saw something," Tuck protested. "Can you get him to slow it down?" Sqwydd laid a hand on his friend's shoulder.

"I doubt anything could survive in a metal box for almost a month," he said.

"Actually," Holiday said, "the cafeteria is locked in this section too. If it got into the pantry, maybe it could have lasted. All the more reason to proceed with caution."

The roof finally gave way, dust and metal collapsing in on itself. The way before them was clear – the ceiling in the hall bowed a bit, steel debris scattered near, but navigable. White's machine withdrew its arm. "Let's move."

They made good time, passing the sliding doors that had marked Rex's room, the mess hall, the MRI room. The second steel wall faced them just after Six's door. Sqwydd and Tuck stood aside, waiting, but White shot Holiday a look from the cockpit, drill hovering in midair.

That pause was all she needed, trying not to glance over at his room, and here in a hall where no lights had been shattered, the glint of sharp steel bit into her peripheral vision like a gunshot. Sqwydd's throat. Blade.

Holiday whirled, drawing her knife from its leg sheath, threw it straight past the young EVO's shoulder, but their assailant moved too quickly. Sqwydd turned too – White barked out something but she didn't hear it past the whispering sound of torn cloth as a sword cut into Tuck's thigh and Holiday was already drawing her gun, too, raising the barrel to stare a pair of sunglasses in the face.

No one moved, save for Tuck's sudden stumble. He caught himself, wrapping up the gash with a flick of his arm.

Holiday lowered her weapon. The sword folded itself away.

It had to be a trick, an illusion. Even as he stepped forward, crease in his forehead deeper than ever. If Six had been alive, he would have gotten to them. He fell into an embrace she hadn't even remembered offering, and she was a thousand miles away. It had to be Breach, never mind the bullet of cured nanites she'd driven through that monster's skull. It was her mind playing tricks on her, because if they had been fighting Van Kleiss all this time, running from the shadow of a red-eyed skyscraper that had once been the closest thing to a family of their own, he would have been at her side and the shoulders digging into hers now, bony as they had ever been in her every nightmare and dream, would have carried them onward.

"Agent Six."

White Knight's voice interrupted their silent reunion and Holiday had the sudden urge to throw a knife at _him_ too. Sqwydd caught her glare and rolled his eyes. Good to know she had an ally in the enormity of this.

"Yes, sir." He stood at attention, and so help her God if Holiday didn't roll _her_ eyes too at the impossibly spotless green suit. Six didn't have a hair out of place to show for his unexplained confinement, though his voice had a softer cast than she remembered.

White smiled. "Good to have you back."

He nodded, then drew breath. "Knight." When the other man waited, he continued. "Rex left me his tracker before locking down."

They were all listening now. Six continued.

"I don't know what has happened since then, but for once his nanites haven't flushed it from his system. The signal's still broadcasting." He handed Holiday the homing piece. A single blue light blinked languidly.

"Are you safe to travel?" Holiday addressed only Six, now.

"Better than you look," he replied. If that was sarcasm under there, she'd get back at him later.

"We'll go."

She looked around at the others, daring them to challenge the order. No one would. They knew they couldn't. Holiday had been best equipped to handle this all along, even aside from the lab kit slung across her back. The golden handprint wrapped around her ankle, like a perfectly gilded scar, was a testament to that.

Holiday turned to Six. He nodded, mouth a straight line. She knew that look, and returned it in the form of a tired smirk.

It had been twenty-nine days, her arms were bruised and scarred, and they still weren't holding hands, but whatever came next, Dr. Holiday knew they'd get through. For the first time in a month, she found herself absolutely certain of victory.

After all, she and Six had never let Rex down before.


End file.
